All who will be 18 by fall should get to voteYoung primary voters will stay involved

By Adam FogelPublished April 19th 2008 in Concord Monitor

As commentators and political scientists bemoan (or celebrate) the
death of the political party, many people have no idea how much power
parties actually still wield. Look no further than the current fiasco
in the Democratic presidential nominating contest, where the national
party stripped Florida and Michigan of their convention delegates for
jumping ahead in the calendar. Nothing exemplifies party influence more
than the use of super-delegates, where nearly 800 party insiders,
undeterred by the will of the people, will decide the Democratic
nominee. The muscle-bound party of yore is back, but it can use this
power for good or ill.

Take, for example, the recent debate in
the New Hampshire House over the constitutionality of allowing
17-year-olds who will be 18 in time for the general election to vote in
the corresponding primary.

While this debate may be good for the
purpose of improving civic discourse, in practical terms, it's
completely unnecessary. Having the Department of Justice and the state
Supreme Court rule on the proposal's constitutionality is a waste of
taxpayer dollars because there is an easier way: The parties can decide
for themselves.

Since the primary process is a
semi-private affair, parties have ample discretion in determining
eligibility requirements in their respective contests.

Parties have the First Amendment's
associational rights on their side, as enunciated in the 1986 U.S.
Supreme Court decision Tashjian v. Connecticut. Justice Thurgood
Marshall writes in the majority opinion, "The fact that the State has
the power to regulate the time, place, and manner of elections does not
justify, without more, the abridgment of fundamental rights, such as
the right to vote or . . . the freedom of political association."

In Maryland this year, the State Board of
Elections, at the advice of the attorney general's office, reversed the
longstanding policy of 17-year-old primary voting. In a rare act of
bipartisanship, the Maryland Republican and Democratic parties wrote a
letter to the board, urging them to reconsider their decision on the
basis of the parties' First Amendment rights. The attorney general
agreed: The parties had the right to expand the franchise, even if it
violated the state's interpretation of the Maryland Constitution. The
board voted unanimously to reverse course and more than 12,000 eligible
17-year-olds registered to vote in the Feb. 12 primary.

New Hampshire's political parties have
the same rights under the federal Constitution as their Maryland
counterparts. Allowing these young people to participate in primary
elections will encourage them to become lifelong participants in the
political process. It is also an issue of basic fairness - if these
young people can vote in the general election, they should have the
right to decide who is on that general election ballot. The military
currently allows 17-year-olds to join the armed services with parental
consent, so these young Americans also deserve an opportunity to vote
for their commander-in-chief in every stage of the process.

Maryland and New Hampshire would not be
alone in allowing 17-year-old primary voting. Over a dozen other states
already have the policy. Others, including Pennsylvania and Rhode
Island, are considering implementing it in time for the next election
cycle.

The time has come for the political
parties of New Hampshire and across the country to come together and
assert their rights, expand the franchise and realize the full promise
of our democracy.

(Adam Fogel is the right to vote director at FairVote, a
nonpartisan, nonprofit voting rights and election reform organization
based in Washington, D.C. )